Author Insight

Alone Again

Einarr has just lost his only friend and finds himself battling more dragons. Tired and hungry, he's challenged by an older dragon who realizes she has challenged the Lone Hero.

Book Excerpt

The Lone Hero

It was late morning and he suffered from
exhaustion, pain, and hunger when two more appeared. They hovered,
observing the massive amount of their dead. The larger aged one
descended to engage Einarr, the other rushed away.

“Now you suffer, nasty little vermin,” the
dragoness said in a shrill-pitched hissing voice. “Where are your
friends who assisted you in this atrocity?” The tan dragon’s eyes
were cloudy, it had few teeth, and it tottered when it walked.

How old do these monsters get to be?
“There’s just me, nastier teenier bug, but don’t worry, I’ll squish
you quickly and you can join your friends.”

Einarr shook his head in disgust leaning
against a tree. “Sluggish, aren’t you and what terrible aim. Over
here, stupid. Are they worried they’ll lose more warriors so they
sent you, the expendable one?”

She howled, annoyed. Einarr smirked and
waved his sword in a small figure eight pattern which angered her
even more. She charged and he swung, but she leaped and landed away
from him. Again, she came at him and he jabbed at her. He only
grazed her and she skipped backwards. This continued for a while
when Einarr realized that she just toyed with him, that perhaps her
partner went to retrieve more of them.

She sprinted towards him, and he swung but
on his haunches and sliced a forepaw. She wailed and lunged at him.
He pierced underneath her left wing. She reeled then jumped at him
and he slashed her belly.

Now vulnerable and in outraged she muttered,
gasping, “It is against our law to slay a Great One.”

Einarr sneered. “Never met any of you that
I’d call great and I don’t obey your laws.” Einarr pointed at her
with his left hand.

She mustered more strength and saw the green
streak on his inner arm. “Grandus Draconus,” she screeched. Taking
the time to sum up her enemy; she wheezed and sank down to await
her end. She pointed a claw at him, as comprehension sunk in. “You
can only be the Lone Hero. I meet my doom as foretold.”

Grasping the sword in both hands, madness
captured his mind, and he rushed forward and jammed the weapon down
deeply through her head.